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The Lahore Biennale Foundation (LBF) is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide critical sites for experimentation in visual expression and experience, hoping to challenge and expand the scope of both.

The Lahore Biennale Foundation (LBF) is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide critical sites for experimentation in visual expression and experience, hoping to challenge and expand the scope of both. Thus, the LBF focuses on the many stages of production, experience and appreciation of art in all its forms. The Foundation is committed to the potential of art as an instrument of important social critique. It operates in awareness of possible public(s) and location(s) but is global in aspiration: It values public investment and considers the specificity of geographical and social context in establishing the legitimacy of its functions but does not pander to preconceived tropes of the ‘vernacular.’

To this end, the LBF endeavors to actively support art related projects across Pakistan, and will also host the Lahore Biennale every two years. Underlying this work will be experimentation, research, conversation and publication related to the arts; collaborative outreach and learning opportunities; and cultural exchange, including facilitating artist residencies.

Aims and Objectives1. To operate as an independent organization that furthers visual expression and experience in Pakistan, while strengthening the infrastructure for each;
2. To promote public and multidisciplinary interaction with the arts by critiquing and expanding ways of production, exhibition and dissemination;
3. To encourage critical, examined practices in the arts that are based on research and experimentation;
4. To facilitate mobility of practitioners across borders and provide access to learning opportunities, resources and connections;
5. To encourage the practice of arts as a socially contextualized process that explores and evaluates its social function.

In the News

Rashid Rana, artistic director of the inaugural Lahore Biennale, is stepping down from his leadership role in what is planned to be the first international biennial in Pakistan. According to a joint statement issued by Rana and the Lahore Biennale Foundation, posted on the biennial’s Instagram account, they “were not able to reach a formal…